2022 inductee
Alan H. Jepson
The early 1960s boasted handsome young men in national politics. Milford had its own rival to the Kennedy brothers and New York Mayor John V. Lindsay in Alan H Jepson, who would outlast them all.
Although Alan Jepson was born in Hartford, he came to be known as “Mr. Milford” both for as long tenure in politics but also for the respect he received from those on both sides of the political aisle.
Born to father Chauncey and mother Alice Piercy in 1926, Jepson grew up in Stratford. He was a member of the “Greatest Generation,” leaving high school at age 17 and joining the U.S. Navy during World War II. He served aboard the destroyer, USS Collette, in the Iwo Jima and Okinawa Pacific theatres.
After his Navy discharge in 1946, Alan returned to finish Stratford High School, then earned a degree in communications from Boston University on the G.I. Bill. In Boston he met and married a Tufts college graduate, the formidable Mary Elizabeth (Betty) Pettingell, in 1948.
Jepson worked first in broadcasting, then with Junior Achievement in Massachusetts, eventually becoming J.A.’s Executive Director in greater New Haven, and settling in Milford in 1956. He brought JA to Milford in 1957.
As executive Director of the Citizens Action Committee, Jepson worked with Mayor Dick Lee in New Haven, while locally he kept active in the PTA, Pond Point Association, and Milford Democratic Party.
Alan was appointed chairman of the Charter Revision Commission in the late 1950s. Upon its recommendation, Milford changed from a “Town,” with a town manager form of government, to a “City,” with mandatory minority representation on all boards and commissions, an elected “strong” mayor, and an elected Board of Alderman.
Having led the design of the new civic entity, Alan sought to be Milford's first mayor, running on the Democrat ticket in the next ensuing municipal election in 1959.
At that time Republican candidate and major local power broker, Clarence Platt, refer to the then 37-year old Jepson derisively as “the Boy.”
Jepson recalled that his young daughter asked him why his good friend would say such mean things of her daddy. “It's just politics. We’re still friends,” Alan replied.
But both Jepson and Platt lost to town manager Charles Iovino (MHOF 2016), who received a record setting write-in vote. Undeterred, Jepson was elected in own right as Milford's second mayor in 1963. He served three terms until the 1969 election loss to Republican Ed Kozlowski (MHOF 2022.)
During Alan's tenure, the city acquired the former YMCA camp Clark, now to 330-acre Eisenhower Park.
For Milford 325th anniversary in 1964, Jepson teamed up with Superintendent of Schools Joseph Foran (MHOF 2009) to challenge the students of the city’s two high schools to design a new city flag. The seal of Milford was long established as a conjoined “MF.” Law junior Karen D. Saloomey won with a handsome design - an octagonal band in Latin describing the city surrounding the seal and Ansantawae’s (MHOF 2008) “mark”, in turn surrounded by oak leaf clusters and two stars on a blue field. Milford had its flag and a grand and memorable anniversary celebration.
Post WWII urban renewal efforts and trends fostered by the federal government affected Milford. West side Myrtle at Walnut Beaches became more controversial in Jepson's years as mayor. Whereas once motorists could drive along the shore all the way from Milford Point to West Haven blocked only by the circling of the harbor - the creation of Silver Sands State Park blocked that connection.
This ultimately caused the loss of economic redevelopment of Walnut Beach amusement area so well remembered in the Milford book Sand in our Shoes, which was a done deal well before Jepson's tenure - the states acquisition of Silver Sands began after Hurricane Diane in 1955, with land transferred completed by 1960.
Actual development of the state park languished for decades and once grand plans for a hotel and conference center, and a marina at the foot of a revitalized Naugatuck Avenue never materialized.
Jepson's political career turned south for time, losing the mayoralty in 1969 and again to MHOF founder Jerry Patton for the 119th District statehouse in the 1970s. Alan remained active in the Democratic Party while raising a brood of girls: Linda, Susan, Margot, Nancy and Paula. He kept busy, however, reminiscing 1987 that he only spent two months not working throughout his life.
On a rainy June 7, 1982 Alan and wife Betty were taking in “Chariots of Fire” at the Capitol Theatre, Daniel Street. Water started to rise in the theater. A torrential storm and three days of rain the preceded it turned a peaceful Wepawaug River into a raging torrent that divided the city in half and wreaked much of downtown.
Alan stepped up and processed disaster loans for FEMA for the affected property owners in the ensuing year under the Alberta Jagoe mayoral administration.
Throughout his life he remained active while out of elective office, serving as Democratic Connecticut State Auditor and as a Block Grant administrator in Milford among other roles.
By 1987 he was working as the city’s Community Development Director when he ran for the city clerk office to replace the very long serving and retiring Milford legend in her own right, Margaret Egan.
Jepson won and went onto serve a very long time, too - 11 terms, 22 years, until his retirement in 2009. Remaining popular throughout, Jepson usually ran unopposed and was often cross endorsed by the Republicans.
Among other activities, Alan was: a 25 year volunteer with Flotilla 73, Coast Guard Auxiliary; a member (since 1976) and president (1995) of the Milford Rotary, a parishioner, senior warden and choir member at St. Peter's Episcopal church; president of the local American Red Cross; member of the WWII Veterans Memorial Committee: the United Way; Boy Scouts, and other civic organizations in Milford.
In 2001, Jepson received the “Living Treasure” award given by the Milford Junior Women's Club. About that time, he was also introduced to and enjoyed yoga. Shortly after his death, US Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn, said, “It is difficult to put into words what Alan Jepson has meant to the Milford community. Alan was a reflection of all that we hope and expect community leaders to be.”
Jerry Patton committed, “Even though we ran against each other, I can say that he was the one guy I could always vote for, even though I'm a Republican.”
Current mayor Benjamin Blake honored Jepson’s memory, saying “Alan was a mentor to me and many, many others in public service … A gentleman’s gentleman.”
Alan served as a charter member of the Milford Hall of Fame until his death. For his part, Alan loved Milford back, often saying, “The best people in the world live here.”
Both a city roadway, Jepson Drive, and the Alan H. Jepson Manor Public Housing Development in Walnut Beach, were named in his honor during his lifetime.
George J. Smith
The life of George Judson Smith is a window into the post-Civil War through the post-WWII eras and an American success story. It is also a story of Milford chronicled by himself in a few typewritten pages.
George was born in the third home sited on the land of Widow Martha Beard, whose husband died during the crossing from England to Massachusetts.
George’s great, great grandfather - Deacon John Smith - married the widow Beard’s granddaughter securing the site in the Smith’s name, which continues to this day at 171 Broad Street, now the Coldwell Banker office.
The house was a small one, built in 1841 by George’s father,Thaddeus. It was intended to be an adequate “cage for his bird,” his wife, an unrelated Smith, whom he married in 1842 at the First Church.
George was born there, the fifth of five children, the first three of whom died of illness. He would be a dedicated Christian and life-long Congregant of the First Church.
At age six he was deemed old enough for school, which was held across the Milford Green at the corner of Center and Broad in the home occupied by teacher, Anne Baird. Miss Baird’s students. both boys and girls, ranged in age up to 12.
Mother made George kneel for her blessing before venturing forth to school, a tie to faith that would last his lifetime.
Miss Baird also taught Sunday school and all her lessons were well versed in the Bible and its stories. At eight, George played with some boys, skipping school for a few days.The hooky, once discovered, resulted in having “difficulty sitting” for a time.
Thereafter and for the rest of his life, the priorities of attendance and punctuality were a source of pride. George’s childhood was like a page out of Tom Sawyer - mischief and adventure in the small pond of 1870s Milford.
At 10 or 11, his studies moved to a boy’s school taught by Jonas French. At 12, he attended Milford’s first “graded school” taught by the imperious Alexander Drummond.
A battle ensued in the Board of Education between the pastor of the First Church and some prominent citizens against some politicians as to the present and future course of education in Milford. Eventually, Mr. French retired and his one-roomed schoolhouse closed, whereupon Drummond’s graded school became the model unit.
After four years, Drummond left for the superintendent job at West Haven. His successor, Mr. Simonds, opened the first high school. Upon Drummond’s departure and his father’s loss of eyesight, George chose to end his formal education at age 16.
His education didn’t stop, however, as he read extensively and took “Chautaqua” courses, and educational philosophy and movement popular at the time, by mail. Despite the limited formal education, Smith would serve on the Milford Board of Education for 27 years from 1910 to 1937, 15 as its secretary.
His father Thaddeus was born in 1816 in the year without a summer due to the eruption of the Tambora volcano on the other side of the world. He was a skilled cobbler who made custom shoes for women. He did so for various firms including the Joyce Shoe Co. in New Haven.
Learning something of the craft from his dad, George went to work at the modern Baldwin and Lambert shoe factory (MHOF 2018) on broad Street, initially for $3, then, in the second tear, for $4 per 60-hour week, eventually working up to cutter position for the most pay short of that of a foreman.
Family needs required additional work during slow periods, so gardening, horticultural nursery and wood-cutting helped the budget, but didn’t amount to much money.
Better yet for George was a meeting with John North, the owner of the largest independent insurance agency in New Haven and who represented many companies. He allowed George to market insurance policies for the firm in Milford as a second job. Extra income was slight, as premiums and commissions were tight.
However, the position got George “in the door” in the business, and when North died, the insurance companies awarded George their agency representative rights. Many of the firms he represented continued to be served by George’s insurance agency for decades.
George quickly took the business life and soon was leaving the long hours and low pay of shoemaking behind. A fellow Lambkin employee, Oscar Perry, also felt the need to branch out.
George agreed and the plumbing/undertaking business of “Bailey and Smith” was established at the corner of River and Daniel streets. Smith knew just a little about the funeral business. He had regularly sung at many services usually in the deceased’s home or barn.
He knew less about plumbing. In an era of outhouses, plumbing consisted mostly of building coal-fired hearing systems with water or steam boilers and radiators.
Through it all, there was little change in income for George, who was still relying on the insurance commissions he earned.
Realizing the need to gain expertise, George took a course in New York to educate himself on embalming.
He bought the small former home of Henry C. Platt on the corner of High and Broad streets for his funeral business, in the process acquiring just the 13th telephone in Milford.
Soon, needing more space, George later took out a loan to buy the nearby vacant former Methodist Church after Henry Taylor (MHOF 2012) built the Mary Taylor Methodist Church.
With the insurance agency, undertaking business and plumbing supply firm, George was becoming Milford’s first conglomerate. Eventually, Bailey decided he preferred the steady income as an employee versus the partnership, so George bought out his partner’s share.
Shortly thereafter,Moses Joy, later morphing into the Milford Water Company, received a charter to bring water to the village. The Smith building was the first to connect.
The plumbing business, which was not really George’s forte, exploded. Bailey, recognizing his error, bought George out of the plumbing business at twice the price paid. This left the insurance and undertaking businesses solely to George, and thus The George J. Smith Company was born.
Building materials were added to the business inventory, including Portland cement, brick, tiles and other tools. It didn’t make much money as carloads of materials had to be bought and handled and masons were not quick to pay very well.
An unfortunate run-in with a rabid dog that was raiding his chickens required months in a New York hospital, as George benefited from the relatively new Pasteur treatment. The incident made him reassess his priorities.
George then purchased a number of buildings and built a large, three story brick building on the old Methodist Church property and land purchased from John North’s heirs.
A venture in the harness and hardware shop failed and was closed, costing thousands of dollars. Turns out, horses were not the future. Real estate, on the other hand, remained on the rise.
Smith benefitted by owning and renting many of the buildings in the downtown Milford area. From the 1890s onward, housing subdivisions sprung up on former beach area farms, perfect for seasonal summer vacationers.
George’s real estate and insurance business were then moved into the Masonic building while the funeral home moved to the Clark property on the corner of Broad and High.
The funeral home would eventually be moved to 135 Broad Street, purchased from The Milford Bank after the foreclosure of the Simon Lake home after the inventor’s bankruptcy.
The real estate and insurance businesses continue to this day at Green’s End, now in the capable hands of Deforest and Danforth, respectively.
The last funeral home building also still stands after being closed and sold in 2020, as no Smith descendant chose to succeed George’s grandson, Winthrop S. Smith, Sr,. into that business. Among the challenges - the highly regulated undertaking business of today requires much greater training than “singing at funeral.”
George’s legacy today includes being a founding member of Milford Rotary in 1924 and serving as its first president.
Later in life, as he traveled the world, George seldom missed a Sunday church service or a Rotary Club meeting. His travels across America, to Africa, Asia and Europe resulted in the collection of of hundreds of artifacts including a vast array of firearms, swords and knives - not to mention a stuffed baby rhinoceros.
Arriving in New York with the rhino, George had no room in the car for both it and himself. So he took the train back to Milford, the rhino riding back to Milford in the car.
For many years, the Smith collection and museum graced the outbuildings at the funeral home. Sadly the rhino today is gone, but much of the collection remains in the family.
George and wife, Nellie Clark, had four children: George, who moved to Providence from Milford, Captain Alvin Smith a WWI veteran, Winthrop A. “Pink” Smith (MHOF 2011), and a daughter, Helen, all three of whom became owners and partners in the George J. Smith & Sons companies.
Edward J. Kozlowski
Edward J. Kozlowski was the first Republican mayor in Milford and later went on to serve Connecticut in several capacities, showing off his pride in his Polish heritage at every opportunity.
He was born in Bridgeport on July 9, 1926 and moved to Milford two years later to his lifelong home that his father built at 31 Gunn Street.
His parents were born in Polish villages between Warsaw and Vilno, which was the under Russian occupation. His mother, Anna Biologlowey, came from Starczynienka, while his father, August Kozlowski, hailed from Wlocliezska.
Young Kozlowski went through the Milford school system from kindergarten to high school, then joined the Navy at age 17, serving for two-and-a half from 1943 to 1946 in the Pacific theater.
At Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, he received an honorable discharge as Second Class Petty Officer Torpedo Man. Ed then attended Clarkson University, accompanied by his first wife, Joan Sapitowicz, divorcing after four years. He graduated in 1951 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering.
Kozlowski worked as a machine designer and administrative engineer at the Bullard Company for 19 years. There he met his second wife, Theresa. They were married for 35 years. It was during this time that he served as Connecticut Division president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
In Milford he got involved with the city youth, managing several Little League baseball teams and was assistant scoutmaster for Troop 1. City politics then called.
In 1967, Ed became an alderman. Just two years later he ran and successfully became the Republican mayor in Milford, serving one term from 1969 to 1971.
While mayor, he put his business and engineering skills to work and stopped a planned $5 million incinerator.
His alternative solution for the city’s waste disposal needs was the construction of the first municipal garage shredder in New England, which was half the cost of the incinerator and more environmentally friendly.
He also spearheaded the creation of 12 small recreation parks in Milford, known as “parkettes.” We would certainly call Ed “green” today.
While only he and future Mayor Clifton Moore only served one term as mayor, Kozlowski did not lose an election. He was called to duty as then Gov. Thomas Meskill appointed Kozlowski to serve on his cabinet, becoming the first American of Polish descent to be appointed a full commissioner in Connecticut.
Ed first served as state Commissioner of Public Works and then headed the Department of Motor Vehicles during the span of 1971 to 1975. This gave Ed the pedestal to do notable things for the Polish community.
He was co-chairman of Hartford’s Pulaski Monument for five years. Casmir Pulaski, a Polish native, was a general in the Revolutionary War and was known as the father of the American cavalry. Ed was also head of a sculpture selection committee that interviewed 25 candidates. His committee helped raise $150,000 in private funds for its completion. The monument was dedicated on July 4, 1976.
Another project Kozlowski championed was the 17 feet high “Genius of Connecticut” statue, originally installed in 1878 atop the State Capital dome, but damaged in the 1938 hurricane. After four years in the Capital basement in 1942, the piece was donated to the federal government and melted down as part of the war effort to make ammunition and machine parts.
As Public Works Commissioner, Ed hired a Polish sculpture, Casimir Michalczyk, to restore the original plaster model. In the 2000s, it was scanned by laser for accuracy and a new statue was cast in bronze by the foundry Polich Tallis at an expense of $330,000.
It is currently on view in the Capital rotunda, awaiting another $2000,000 still needed to once again raise the “Genius” to the top of the Capital dome. Kozlowski was also responsible for the construction and naming of Nicolas Copernicus Hall Science Building at Central Connecticut State University, after the Polish astronomer and mathematician known as the “father of modern astronomy.”
Copernicus established the theory that the planets revolved around the sun, and not the Earth.
As Motor Vehicle commissioner, Ed started the first learner’s permit driver’s tests in Polish, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian for those who could not speak English.
In May 2012, Kozlowski was honored on Polish Day at the State Capital with a citation presented by state Rep. Peter Tercyak. The Award is given to Polish Americans who have contributed significantly to the state and nation.
In other activities, for 60 years Ed was a member of the Thaddeus Kosciusko Society (national hero in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus who trained troops and fought in the American Revolution) of Milford, serving as its president for seven years.
He was also life member of Knights of Columbus, Milford Elks #1589, American Legion #296, VFW #7788 and the Milford Club. Kozlowski Road, which borders Platt Regional Technical School - the construction of which he initiated and saw to completion - is named in his honor.
An avid fisherman, at the suggestion of two fishing buddies, in 1970 he approved the city’s sponsorship of the annual Fishing Derby for children at the Wepawaug River City Hall and upper (or North Street) duck ponds. The Fishing Derby continues to this day.
Kozlowski also held a Master Gardener’s Certificate from the University of Connecticut and tilled a garden of vegetables, fruit and flowers. Dahlias were prize winners, garlic was one of his specialities and he once grew a 673-pound pumpkin in his backyard.
Kozlowski married three times. His first marriage to Joan lasted four years. They had one daughter, Andrea. His second marriage ended with her death. They had four sons: Edward, John, Michael and Andy. He also cherished his nine grandchildren and two great grandsons and great granddaughters.
Ed’s third marriage of 16 years to Dorothy (Dotty), who he proudly referred to as “my bride,” ended with his passing in 2016. Dotty, who has moved away from Milford, remains a MHOF member and provides the line drawings for the Hall of Fame memorial plaques.
Ed was a charter member of the Milford Hall of Fame and served until his passing.
Newman E. Argraves
Of all the people in Milford’s long history, few have physically affected the community more than Newman E. Argraves - civil engineer and consulting engineer.
Abraham A. Ribicoff, Connecticut’s incumbent governor, opened the Connecticut Turnpike on January 2, 1958, at Greenwich and then led a motorcade through towns and cities including Milford to a similar event in Killingly, CT, on the Rhode Island line.
Four years previous in 1954, design began on the Connecticut Turnpike, the interstate highway that would cut Milford in half. The design would be overseen by Argraves, who served as the Connecticut State Highway Commission at the time - on the I-95 project that was the state’s largest public works effort to that time.
Speaking publicly, Gov. Ribicoff emphasized the “immense benefit” to the state as well as the “most modern highway construction methods contributing to safe driving that have been engineered into this road.”
Ribicoff took special notice to commend Argraves for “meeting an impossible timetable” and to complete the “road of national importance” on schedule.
Argraves had earned the praise.
Interrupting his work on the turnpike were twin hurricanes that ravaged Connecticut in 1955. In the aftermath of the great flooding, Ribicoff was everywhere. Argraves was too, as he was the person actually tasked with destroying all the road connections, temporary bridges, debris clearance, etc. to restore commerce and daily life after the flood damaged and divided entire sections of the state.
Argraves got both done.
At the time of its debut, the Connecticut Turnpike was widely regarded as serving a longer stretch of urban and suburban communities than any other modern expressway in the U.S.
Argraves designated seven exits for Milford, more than any other city, with two more in Stratford serving Devon and one in Orange serving the Live Oaks and Woodmont sections of Milford.
Completion of the highway changed Milford’s growing farm town forever. Retail, commercial, internationally known corporations, and vast residential development came quickly after the turnpike, bringing vast increases in the population and our tax base. Just over a year had passed after the turnpike opened - Milford became a city in 1959.
Perhaps less popular around the region and state was Argrave’s instrumental involvement in excepting Connecticut from some tolls restrictions of Federal Highway Act of 1921, and incorporating pre-existing roadways like the Baldwin Bridge (Saybrook) into the Connecticut Turnpike.
Argrave’s testimony to the U.S. Senate on June 23, 1955, just weeks before the hurricanes of 1955, was instrumental in saving Connecticut millions in 1950s dollars for road development.
The resulting change in the law he advocated for allowed states to “repay” the federal government for existing state dollars received on its roads by tolls. The repayment would then be added on to on top of the “regular” federal “free highway money” allotment to be designated for yet more state road construction.
One can’t blame Newman Argraves for that because that’s how government works. He does deserve credit for helping Connecticut get more than its share in federal highway dollars.
On the downside, Milford was hemmed in by toll stations on three sides for decades including the Stratford and West Haven tolls on I-95 and those on the Rt. 15 - until tolls were abolished after the collapse if the Mianus River Bridge and the Stratford toll crash, in 1983.
When 95-year-old son was appraised of his father’s potential addition to the Milford Hall of fame, he could only add, “He was a great man.”
Argraves engineered, surveyed and designed many Milford projects but also broke new ground. He may have been the first to recommend field inspections via radiographic and/or magnetic particle methods.
He also pioneered the first use of entraining concrete (Aircrete) for the buildings and grandstands at Monmouth Raceway (NJ).
He literally wrote the book on infrastructure flood recovery, authoring Connecticut Highways and the 1955 © 1958 for the American Society of Civil Engineers.
He was a member of many professional, regional and national associations and committees, including being named the 1956 Connecticut Engineer of the Year, Chairman of the Emergency Planning Committee advising the US Bureau of Public Roads (“BPR” - pre-FEMA) and as Consultant to the Executive office of the President of the United States, D. D. Eisenhower, on public works planning.
Argrave’s list of projects are too long to mention. Among his many skills: design and construction of water supply, sewerage, environmental protections, dams and flood control, power stations, airports, schools, office and residential buildings, factories, roads and bridges and more.
Notable projects include Reynolds Alloys (aluminum) plant and facilities., the UCONN stadium and auditorium, and the U.S. Navy ammunition and related facilities in Hingham, MA.
While most of his post-WWII life’s work was in Connecticut and the Northeast, he also designed, built, oversaw and consulted as far away as Washington State and the country of Paraguay.
His early work included industrial, mechanical, electrical, structural and architectural design, construction and operation at Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation and at Haller Engineering Associates from 1935 to 1944, giving him exceptionally broad skill sets.
Newman was twice married. Clara Durepo Argraves gave him two children: Lawrance “Larry” Argraves, who worked with his father as an architect at the Old Gate Lane, Milford firm, and daughter, Janice Fitzgerald.
His second wife was Barbara Velmure Argraves, A daughter through that marriage, Nancy Drummond, worked as a surveyor for her father and continued to live in his Hamden home for many years.
He was the son of James Edward and Annie Walton Argrave, who hailed from Caribou, Aroostook County, Maine.
Jared Ingersoll II
Jared Ingersoll II was born on October 24, 1749 in New Haven, Connecticut.
His was the namesake of his Tory father, Jared Ingersoll (MHOF 2019). Son Jared was a jurist, author and a delegate of the Continental Congress and a signatory to the U.S. Constitution for the state of Pennsylvania in 1789.
Although he was born in the state of Connecticut, he was more known as a state attorney general who served Philadelphia from 1791-1800.
In addition, Ingersoll was also the U.S. lawyer for Pennsylvania in the years 1800-1801 and for a short period of time he served as the presiding judge at the Philadelphia Federal District Court in the years 1821-1822.
While his father maintained a Tory proclivity until his death, Jared took to a totally different stage. He graduated in 1766 from Yale University after which he decided to travel abroad.
In the years prior to the Revolution, he was sent to London by his father to further his study at the Middle Temple - and to escape the growing political tensions in America at the time.
In the year 1776 - and no doubt a disappointment to his father at home - Ingersoll traveled through Europe endorsing American independence in disregard to the Loyalist views of his father.
As the Revolutionary Way (1776-1791) period progressed, young Ingersoll was convinced of the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation - the legal document that held the rebellious states together that was adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777.
During these Revolutionary years, young Ingersoll received helpful and encouraging support from his very influential friends, helping him establish his professional reputation. His lawyerly training served him well.
Ingersoll returned to Philadelphia in the year 1778 recognized as an American Patriot - but not so by his father.
A short period of time later in 1780-81, he became a delegate to the Continental Congress. Ingersoll supported a strong central political authority.
He and others supported constitutional reforms that they believed were achievable via simple modifications of the original Articles of Confederation.
While Ingersoll did not often participate in the debates of the Continental Convention, he did attend all of its sessions. However, at the Convention, Ingersoll’s efforts to revise the existing Articles of Confederation largely failed.
Conversely, Ingersoll’s main contribution in the overall cause of Constitutional reform came not at the Convention but earlier during his extensive and illustrious legal career where he had helped define many of the principles being carried forth at the Convention.
In the end, Ingersoll joined the majority, if only half-heartedly, supporting the plan to create an entirely new U.S. Constitution approved in 1789.
Once the new national government was fully established, Jared Ingersoll went back to his profession as a lawyer. He became a member of the Common Council of Philadelphia in the year 1789. One of the very controversial cases Ingersoll entered was a landmark case in state’s rights where he represented Georgia in Chisolm v. Georgia [2 U.S.] in 1793.
In Chisolm v. Georgia, Alexander Chisolm was the executor of the late Robert Farquhar, a merchant with a shipment of clothing, cottons, linens, and blankets in 1777 that was diverted to Savanna Georgia.
There, American troops commandeered the cargo. The state of Georgia authorized commissioners authorized to pay Farquhar for his goods from the state treasury.
However, they failed to pay the $170.000 owed to him - and then Georgia erased all claims against the state after the Revolutionary War ended.
Chisolm filed his lawsuit directly with the U.S. Supreme Court meeting in Philadelphia, hiring the Attorney General of the United States, Edmund Randolf, as his lawyer. Georgia chose not to send a representative, instead offering a formal written remonstrance presented by Philadelphia’s lawyers Alexander Dallas and Jared Ingersoll.
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A judgement in favor of Chisolm was entered in the following February<!-18,-> 1794 term stating ”a state cannot run under the cover of state immunity to suit its own purposes.” To the defense of state’s British king-like sovereign immunity, Chief Justice John Jay opined that “the states never were in the possession of anything like independent sovereignty. The sovereignty of the nation was the people”
The court ruled that a state could be sued in Federal court by a citizen of another state.
Not surprisingly, the states objected. This was the first court litigation testing state’s rights and autonomy that would culminate in the Civil War in 1861.
Georgia’s governor, Edward Telifair, proclaimed that “an annihilation of [the state’s] political existence must follow” if anything approaching the likes of the Chisolm case decision were permitted again.
As an out, by 1795 enough states ratified the 11th amendment that declared, “The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”
Meanwhile, the Farquhar heirs did not receive any compensation until a special bill of relief was passed in 1847 - 70 years after the original taking. The right to sue in Connecticut, for instance, is at the discretion of the state to this day.
In another early Supreme Court case representing Hylton in Hylton v. United States, 3 US 171 (1796), Ingersoll brought the first challenge to the constitutionally of a tax act of the Congress.
Sadly, he lost again, as the Supreme Court did not agree that the Constitution, Artcle I, Section 2, Clause 3, ban on any Federal “direct taxes except as apportioned to the population of a state” preventing the federal government from applying a yearly tax on an individual’s goods, in this case, carriages.
Ingersoll’s loss was the first blow against the Constitutional restrictions restraining the Federal government’s ability to directly reach into the pockets of an individual American citizen.
Eventually, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution (1913) clarified this point in stating,”The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
As a strong federalist, at the turn of the 19th century Ingersoll considered the election of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency in 1800 as a “great subversion.”
As a member of the Federalist Party, Ingersoll ran for the vice presidency on the presidential ticket of New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton ticket in 1812. James Madison and Elbridge Gerry defeated them.
He also served as the presiding judge at the Philadelphia Federal District Court in the years 1821-1822.
At the end of his life, this Connecticut man - Jared Ingersoll II - was buried in Philadelphia’s First Presbyterian Church cemetery in 1822.
